Friday Update for April 2nd, 2010

With the transition away from news about the story pillar of The Old Republic starting to ramp up, this week’s update brings us a Developer Blog from Principal Lead Systems Designer Damion Schubert. The blog outlines Bioware’s approach to creating the overall feel of an MMO, either from the “world” philosophy or the “game” philosophy. Both approaches differ greatly, wherein the world approach focuses on an open sandbox and players’ imaginations, and the game approach tightly holds players hands through a fine-tuned experience.

Schubert went on to explain that the Austin development team approaches MMO development with a third philosophy: community. The community-oriented approach allows them to bridge the gap between world and game, providing opportunities for players to both interact and explore the world around them, and also to be engaged in stories surrounding their characters and the galaxy as a whole. From the article:

“To me, as an MMO designer, community is the whole ball of wax. Let’s face it, if you wanted to play just a ‘game’, you’d be off playing a single player roleplaying game. If you wanted a ‘world’, maybe you’d play a life-simulation game. But community – well, that’s the whole ‘massively multiplayer’ part of MMO. When you look at it this way, ‘community’ is at least as important as ‘game’ or ‘world’ in this debate.”

This should at least help to calm the fears of some fellow gamers about the focus thus far on single player content. While he couldn’t give any specifics, Schubert noted that we will be hearing from both him and “other systems designers in the coming months as we talk about the systems and features that are getting locked down inside of the game”. Some of these features include crafting, where he said that they want to allow players to create items in the game that will benefit the community as a whole, rather than just the individual.

The entire entry is a great read and you can expect us to cover in more in depth in episode 17. Read “Community: The Third Element”

MER Episode 14 – Crackpots of The Old Republic

With Con season right around the corner, the news from Bioware has just barely been trickling out. But that’s okay! With a month break from the show, we’ve had plenty of news pile up to talk about including a new Holonet entry, a Dev Blog on the Sith Inquisitor, and the newly announced playable planet, Taris! It’s not all news either, as we launch into an epic speculation rabbit hole about the nature of the Spring 2011 release announcement. You won’t want to miss it!

Also, we want to extend a huge thanks to JThompson6577, DEDMON5811 (who left a seriously hilarious review and has been active in the forums as well), and Peterisjustok for taking the time to leave us reviews on iTunes!

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News from the Galactic Republic
Holorecord Entry: Onslaught of the Sith Empire

Developer Blog: Composing the Sith Inquisitor
-For those of you who missed the Trooper dev blog (like us) you can find it here

Taris Added as Newest Playable Planet
-Background info from Wookiepedia
-Aurebesh translation from Holonet Project
-Originally speculated as a planet back in July by forum poster MFavila
-Lore Update from Darth Hater

Stories from the Outer Rim
What the 2011 Release Date Means for the Community and EA
-Original release target post is now over 200 pages
-Recent entitlement post with an official response from ErickAdams
-Zach’s crackpot idea of a large media company purchasing EA in the next year
-The negative effect the entitled minority can have on the greater community (The Ghostcrawler Incident)

Fansites from around the web
-Holonet Project: Dedicated to translating all of the Aurebesh found on the Holonet pages. http://www.holonetproject.net/
-Shock N Awesome: Sith Inquisitor class blog. http://shocknawesome.com/

Pre-Episode Poll
Are You Going to PAX East?
-Nope. (87%, 47 Votes)
-Yes! I’ll see you guys there. (13%, 7 Votes)

MER Episode 13 – Dispensing Justice

Hear that sound? That’s the gentle sigh of relief from a community that finally knows when to expect The Old Republic to be released. A release date, we might add, that is going to mean more features, more content, and ample time to deal with bugs PRIOR to launch. Along with the new release target, we get caught up on the rest of SWTOR news with the Imperial Agent developer blog, the new Sith planet, Dromund Kaas, and more. We also respond to one of our best polls yet (thanks to you listeners!) and yield a few questions on everything from group roles to cross-faction conversation.

Thanks again to everyone who sent us a question, participated in the poll, or has left us reviews on iTunes and other places around the web…we truly appreciate it!!

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News from the Galactic Republic
Release Rumor Round 3: Bioware confirms Spring 2011 as the “release target”
-Confirmation on the official forums
-Original rumor from EA meeting on Darth Hater

Developer Blog – Top Secret Dossier on the Imperial Agent

Dromund Kaas added to the Holonet

Fan Friday Update features a new Developer Corner section

Pre-Episode Poll
How many hours a week do you game?
-Hardcore! (25+ hours) (38%)
-Moderate (15-25 hours) (38%)
-Casual (5-15 hours) (19%)
-Very Casual (0-5 hours) (5%)

Listener Questions
Do you think typical mmo players like having well defined group roles for their class, or do you think they will adapt well to being able to change their combat role through changing traits/talents or by summoning a companion?
-Reliant

With all the stun and sleep moves I just dont think the pvp is going to be very action packed more like everyone stun everyone. How do you guys think the pvp will work? Also do you think that all the classes should have a stun ability?
-Mitchal Whiting

- Audio Question from Slartibartfast (Axel)

MER Episode 13 Pre-Poll: Are You Hardcore?

Are you hardcore? We know that each of you comes from a different gaming background, with a number of different experiences. Are you the casual player who logs a few hours a week, or a dedicated raider putting in five hours a night? Vote in the poll and let us know in the comments!

Episode 13 will come out early next week. We’ll be discsussing the newly announced “target release” of SWTOR, the Imperial Agent developer blog, Dromund Kaas, and more!

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[poll id="10"]

MER Episode 08 – The Black Sun Syndicate

Bioware dropped the making of Coruscant and the new planet, Balmorra, on us, and Zach points out a mention of the Black Sun Syndicate! Christian Sorrell joins us from FourStoryGamer.com to discuss the news and the possibility of creature handlers in SWTOR, as well as some listener questions about Bioware points, mounts, and more. We top off the episode with a special segment about the Star Wars franchise. Check it out and let us know what you think!

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News from the Galactic Republic
-The Making of Coruscant
-Balmorra revealed as the newest playable planet location in SWTOR

Stories from the Outer Rim
-Is Creature Handler going to be revealed as a playable class?

Listener Questions
I Think the points system that you guys was talking about in episode 7 could be something like World Of Warcraft’s DKP system. Where you gain points for raiding and then when you gain enough of these points you could use these points to gain epics from drops in the raid. Join the dark side we have cookies.
-Darth Sciros

One of the things I’ve been most concerned about is this: What incentive will there be for characters to group together for quests? I mean socialization and companionship are one thing, but what about furthering your story line, and what do you do when all your friends and guildmates are busy on another planet and don’t have time to come do your “Flashpoint?” And what if the people who DO have time turn out to be jerks? I posted this a while ago, on the TOR forums, and I’m interested to hear what you think.
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=25187 Thanks!
-Billy Uno